Music is shifting in so many traditions, all of the way from songwriting to how it is it is produced. I know several songwriters in the Nashville area who are good people and refuse to conform to the “song factory” and take the soul out of the music. My dear friend and legendary songwriter Dennis Knutson (penned songs for Buck Owens, George Jones and many more) said to me once, “It used to be about quality instead of quantity and I refuse to make a song just for sake of making a song. They have plenty of songs on the shelves in Nashville for that and that’s where they will stay.”

Kara Clark is one of the “quality” examples of Nashville these days. She is hell-bent on not conforming her music, looks or actions. Labeling her is tricky, so I say just listen to her music.

Her writing is a throwback to some of the darker songs by Country female artists who wrote for women. Such songs as Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” and “Rated X” or Tammy Wynette’s “D.I.V.O.R.C.E” come to mind. Kara hides absolutely nothing on her new album Southern Hospitality, an album that is just as much Rock as it is Country. Songs such as “Whiskey and Cigarettes,”  “The Devil Don’t Cry” and “I’m Not Country,” lyrically seem like they came from a page out of the Mr. Hiram King (Hank) Williams catalog.  She exposes the atrocious reality of troubled times and injustice,  the darker side of music city USA, all of the while invoking woman empowerment.  If Miranda Lambert used “Kerosene,” then Kara Clark has used diesel fuel and has set Nashville ablaze with Southern Hospitality.

When asked about her journey in music so far, Kara is very resolute in her determination to make music her own way….

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